The Mom Seal of Approval: The Princess and the Frog

Full Movie Plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_Frog#Plot

The Princess and the Frog is, to my knowledge, the newest Disney princess movie (with the exception of Tangled which just came out on DVD a few days ago). Even though the movie came out right as I turned sixteen I still went to see it in theaters with a few of my friends and I loved it. When Amy and I decided that we would add it to the list of movies that we would be watching for this project I still wanted to watch it in some way that was different from how I had seen it the first time. So I watched it with my mother. Let me pause for a second to explain why this is a big deal. My mom hates animated Disney movies. To some, saying someone hates Disney films is the equivalent to saying that they hate puppies and the laughter of small children; Disney movies are supposed to be too cute to hate. Nevertheless, it took about a half hour of pleading, reasoning, and puppy dog pouting to convince my mom to watch Princess and the Frog. 

I am pleased to say that my mom actually liked the movie and it may have even relieved some of the deep seeded hatred she has for animated Disney movies. I think that one of the reasons that she actually liked this Disney princess movie is the fact that it is so different from many of Disney’s earlier princess movies (i.e. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella). The most noticeable difference between Tiana (the main character of the movie) and other Disney Princesses is that Tiana is black. She is in fact Disney’s first black princess. Everyone made a huge deal out of this fact when the movie first came out and similarly it was a pretty big deal with my mother. This is understandable because when my mom was growing up there were almost no African American characters in any of Disney’s movies (with the exception of maybe Song of the South…but that’s a whole different story). Disney didn’t really start coming out with many animated movies starring characters of different ethnicities until the 90s when they released movies like Aladdin, Pocahontas, and Mulan. I enjoyed it too, and for some reason it made me picture my own kids sitting down and watching The Princess and the Frog someday. 

But the differences between Tiana and the earlier Disney princess go far beyond race. It is plain to see from the contrast between Tiana and her rich friend Charlotte that Tiana does not share the same complacent attitude that the earlier Disney princesses do. While Charlotte clearly has the “someday my prince will come” attitude that is indicative of many Disney princesses, Tiana is more driven and less focused on the naive notion that sooner or later a handsome prince will come and sweep her off her feet. Also while Charlotte is pampered and has everything in life handed to her by her rich father, Tiana is ambitious and dreams about someday owning her own restaurant and works two jobs in order to reach that goal. Clearly Tiana does not buy into the fairytale notions that the early Disney Empire helped create, which is a sentiment that she shares with my mother. The one thing that Tiana does have in common with earlier Disney princesses is that she comes from humble beginnings. However, Tiana’s humble beginnings are not inflicted on her by an evil stepmother or evil stepsisters but by the poverty of the 1930s, which makes the story seem a tad bit more relatable. 

The movie also surprisingly touched on a key issue: the perils of money and greed. The villainous, money hungry, Shaman character, known as “the Shadowman” demonstrates the corrupting power of money, and the charming prince who is cut off from his parent’s fortune demonstrates the perils of wasteful spending. Nevertheless, despite the new twists, there were still some old Disney clichés. There was the benevolent fairy godmother type elderly lady (Mama Odie), a deceased parent, lots of talking animals, and of course a handsome prince who slowly falls in love with (and eventually marries) the lovable main character. The clichés weren’t necessarily a bad thing though. I felt that Tiana’s hardworking attitude teaches kids that they have to work for their dreams and not just wish for them to happen, but the Disney clichés and the “happily ever after” ending teaches them not to be too cynical, which is a message I think my mom appreciated too.

For the few things I left out this review by Kerry Lengel of the Arizona Republic kind of sums up a few of my other thoughts about the movie.

pricture from: http://www.parentpreviews.com/movie-reviews/princess-and-the-frog/



A Sedated Princess: Sleeping Beauty

Full Movie Plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty_(1959_film)

Watching Sleeping Beauty this past weekend was definitely a blast from the past. Although I remembered liking the movie, I had forgotten the entire storyline – understandable, I suppose, since the last time I saw it was around age five or six. For those of you like me who need a basic refresher, the gist of the movie is that Princess Aurora is cursed by an evil queen to prick her finger and die before her 16th birthday. However, the last of Aurora's three fairy godmothers had not given Aurora her gift yet, so she gave baby Aurora an "adjustment" to the curse. Instead of dying after pricking her finger, Aurora would fall into a deep sleep, only to be awakened by her true love's kiss. However sappy, cliché, and medically improbable the storyline, one has to admire the romanticism. I must say I did enjoy the movie the second time around, but I noticed plenty that I wouldn't have as a five-year-old.

As in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs there was plenty of sexism even if you overlook the central idea that Princess Aurora has to completely depend on a man to save her.  As Sleeping Beauty grew into a teenager, she was growing into what I guess was supposed to be the epitome of beauty – big doe eyes, hair as "golden as the dawn", lips as "red as the rose", and a waist the diameter of a quarter. While our standards of beauty have thankfully changed at least somewhat since then, I still don’t think it's the greatest message to give to little girls. With eating disorders and poor body image hitting girls at younger and younger ages, I think girls' role models should promote healthy body weights and wider parameters for beauty. Sleeping Beauty represents a stereotypical early Disney princess, and therefore a lack of diverse races, personalities, or body types. A degree of sexism is also present in the fairies that raise Princess Aurora. The red and green fairies, Flora and Fauna, are conventional “ladies”; they’re politically correct and more interested in the pretty things in life, like music, baking, and dresses. The blue fairy, unlike her sisters, is disagreeable and uninhibited. She is therefore portrayed as clumsy, unattractive, and generally manlier. In this Disney film, females are clearly divided into two categories: they are proper and ladylike, or ugly and virile.

Another thing I noticed while watching the movie for the second time was the shockingly poor judgment of Princess Aurora. After encountering a strange boy in the woods, she strikes up a conversation, sings a song with him, and invites him over to her house for her birthday party. At first she’s hesitant because she’s been taught not to talk to strangers, but upon remembering that she’s met him before – in a dream – she’s completely open with him and tells him where she lives. Fortunately for Princess Aurora, in a pleasant twist of fate the man she meets in the woods is a prince (and one she’s actually scheduled to marry) and not a serial rapist or anything like that. Once again, our Disney princess isn’t proving to be the best role model for young girls.

So, all in all, I enjoyed the movie for its simple, whimsical plot and for old time’s sake; however, I was shocked at how poor a role model Princess Aurora was. For all the Disney-princess-loving little girls’ sakes, I hope they find some more appropriate role models ASAP.

Picture from this website

Kickin' it Old School: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Full Movie Plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_%281937_film%29#Plot

To kick off the first entry for our Disney project I thought I would start out with some pure old school Disney. Just as a little background for anyone who didn’t know, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was Disney’s first full length animated film, which is about as old school as Disney gets. The film, based on a story by The Brothers Grimm, came out in 1937 and has remained an animated classic over the generations.

Even though the movie came out about 56 years before I was born I still watched it when I was about 5 or 6. At the risk of committing some sort of Disney blasphemy I have to say that I really didn’t like Snow White when I was little, and after watching it again at 17 I can clearly understand why. The movie must have bored me. Considering my short attention span and the fact that Snow White really does nothing throughout the entire movie but cook and clean for the seven dwarfs and ingest a poisonous apple it is a miracle that I even sat through the entire movie. Even though I would like to believe that my attention span has improved somewhat since I was five, I still found the movie a tad bit boring. There is no denying that Snow White and the myriad of furry woodland animals that follow her around throughout the movie are adorable, but that doesn’t conceal the fact that they don’t really do much.

Unlike when I was five, my revitalized disliking of the movie is due to more than simple boredom; while watching the movie I found myself deeply annoyed at its misogynistic themes. As soon as Snow White sees the unkempt house that the seven dwarfs live in she kicks into ultimate cliche mothering overdrive. She cleans their entire house, cooks them food, and even forces them to take baths before they eat by threatening to withhold their supper from them. Snow White is also completely devoid of ambition and is content to live out the rest of her young life as a live in maid for the dwarfs. The only thing she wants out of life is for a prince to come and sweep her off her feet. She fondly sings of her undying love for the handsome prince of a nearby kingdom despite the fact that the two had only spoken for a grand total of two seconds in the movie. I doubt she even knew his name. Yes I know this is a fairytale children’s movie but I at least expected the two love birds to have an actual conversation before Snow White falls so deeply in love with him that she willingly rides off into the sunset with him at the end of the movie without so much as a second thought. The only thing this guy had to do was sing her a song at the beginning of the movie and show up at her funeral with a horse.

Since this movie was made in in the 1930s I guess I should have expected this. In the 1930s women were not expected to go out on their own adventures or solve their own problems, they were expected to cook, clean, and wait for their prince to come and sweep them off their feet. 

picture from this website